


Handling the Truth

by Gan_HOPE326



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Drama, F/M, Gen, What-If
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-13
Updated: 2020-09-13
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:01:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26446027
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gan_HOPE326/pseuds/Gan_HOPE326
Summary: What if the Dark Lord had truly, finally died when he attacked Godric's Hollow? What does a hero do without the archenemy he's fated to destroy? What would Harry Potter be... without Voldemort?
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Harry Potter
Comments: 1
Kudos: 36





	Handling the Truth

**Author's Note:**

> This story is born out of an idea discussed on r/rational - as u/WalterTFD suggested the idea of "Harry Potter without Voldemort". There was some talking about in what direction that could go, and I thought of a few, but in the end decided to write it in this form. Despite its origin, I don't consider this a rational fanfiction - I haven't really given it enough thought to feel confident calling it that. It's a strange AU of a world somewhat different from the one we know. Any ambiguity in the events' meaning is entirely intentional. Be warned that, like the original books, it starts lighter and then goes to some pretty dark places, so a fair warning. I won't go into detailed content warnings to avoid blatant spoilers, but just expect pretty heavy stuff from the psychological side - though I'm no expert, so no depiction here is intended to be realistic.

Late at night on October 31st - no, rather, in the early morning of November 1st - 1981, Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore, having talked with all whom he needed to talk with, made the necessary arrangement, and taken in his fair share of both grief and somewhat shameful sense of relief from both others and himself, finally sat in his office, all voices but his own banned from his head, and had time to think.

And he thought about what he saw.

Not in an emotional sense; there would be time for that. For now, he tried to banish all of it, and set his mind and knowledge like a hound at the tiniest details of his memories of that scene. The ruin at Godric's Hollow; the dead bodies of his former students; the newly scarred, but otherwise fine, toddler who hadn't really taken in any of all that.

The burned, charred husk of a corpse, huddled in a foetal position, strewn before him.

He had examined and checked it, and so had Aurors even more well-versed than him in detection magic. He had analysed it for signs of transfiguration or any other sort of illusion, deception and forgery. Because it did not seem possible, it seemed too good to be true, that the Dark Lord had simply attacked a one year old child and incinerated himself in the process. And yet, against all odds, that story so incredible it would likely be considered a cover for something far shadier by some once divulged was indeed true, as far as he could tell.

Dumbledore sighed deeply, still massaging his temples, as if to aid the flow of thoughts in his brain. He wracked his mind for any possible ways Voldemort could be playing them, right now. Some way he could either fake his death, or escape it. Not the Horcruxes; those were a cheap trick, useless once there was no one to defend them. Dumbledore already had a good idea of what and where they might be. He did not have time to just second-guess himself on such an important matter - a few drops of Veritaserum to old Slughorn had opened the flood gates on that, and he'd made sure to pursue it in earnest. No, those vessels for Voldemort's soul would be soon destroyed, far sooner than he could regain enough strength to possess someone through them. Like at the end of a game of chess, even while the king was still not mated, the flow of moves could only eventually lead there.

"Was this your best trick, Tom?," mumbled Dumbledore to himself. "Did the prophecy really make you this desperate?"

And yet, absent any other evidence, there was no reason to think otherwise. No precedent for any magic that could have gotten him out of such a tight spot. As far as Dumbledore was concerned, and soon, for the whole world, there was only one reasonable, common sense thing to believe.

Tom Riddle, become infamous as Voldemort, was truly, finally, unequivocally dead.

* * *

"You mean, _the_ Harry Potter?"

That was the second time the question was uttered in that specific train compartment, that morning. The first, by the red-headed boy sitting next to the window, had been in sheer awe. This second one, by the bushy-haired girl who peered from the door together with poor helpless (and now toadless) Neville, was tinged more with a note of scepticism.

"Sure," replied Harry, lifting his hair from his forehead, "scar and all."

"Oh, I've read _all_ about you," she replied, suddenly beaming, "in Modern Magical History, and the Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts, and-"

"Thank Merlin! You convince him then, if you're so knowledgeable," butted in Ron. "I've been trying and failing all morning."

Hermione blinked. "Convince him of what?"

"He thinks You-Know-Who's still alive!"

Simply hearing that, Neville straight up went pale and almost fainted. Hermione merely raised her eyebrows.

"I've read the _official_ accounts," said Harry, clearly annoyed that someone else had been dragged into this. "It sounds weird that such a powerful Dark Wizard would just, you know, die that way. And this morning I've found lying around this copy of a newspaper - _The Quill_ or something - that said..."

" _The Quibbler!_ ," Hermione sighed and rolled her eyes. "Harry, you've got a Muggle upbringing, like me, so you wouldn't know - or you would if you read as much as possible about the wizarding world before today, but never mind - but basically, _The Quibbler_ is trash. Think the _Daily Mail_ 's gossip pages crossed with those _History Channel_ programs where no matter what is it that they're talking about, it's aliens who did it. Its sole writer and editor is literally a crazy person."

Harry, to that, was taken aback. He frowned. "It's still strange," he insisted, stubborn. "I say they're hiding something from us."

"I'll come back to have a chat once I've finished helping Neville here find his toad. But, and I know this sounds like heresy, maybe you shouldn't read literally _everything,_ Harry."

* * *

Having gotten past the last trap unharmed - though Ron was still limping a bit after his little bruise with the giant living chess pieces - the three kids now stood in an empty room, with only what looked like a tall, decorated mirror in the centre.

"There's no one here," said Hermione, wand drawn, looking anxiously around, then relaxing a bit. "Harry, you said you were _certain_ -"

Suddenly, they had company. Professors Dumbledore, McGonagall, Snape and Flitwick all burst in from the door, wands ready to fire, shouting.

"Surrender immediately! You are trespassing in an area that-"

They stopped short of firing any curses, all four wands trained on what they now found out were just three children, scared by the sudden outburst and shaking with fright.

" _Potter?_ ," said McGonagall, in disbelief. "What are you even doing here? Weasley? _Granger?!?_ "

"I'm sorry Professor, I'm sorry, I'm sorry," muttered pleadingly Hermione, "please don't expel me, please don't expel me, please-"

"This goes way beyond expulsion," said calmly Snape, sheathing his wand. "I believe a call to the Aurors is in order. With any luck, Azkaban will take some guests off our hands."

Hermione let out a high pitched squeal of terror and swooned on her feet, needing to lean on Ron's rather shaking shoulder for support. "Severus, please, don't scare them that way," interrupted Dumbledore. "Now, I want to know, what exactly has happened here? I trust this is not just some kind of prank or a silly dare. You've gone through a lot of danger to get this far."

"Headmaster," said Harry, stepping forward, calmly. "Someone is trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone."

"Yes," replied Snape. "We can see that."

Dumbledore waved a hand. "I don't believe that was his meaning, Severus. And there will be time to ask how does he even _know_ about the Stone in the first place. But tell me, Harry, why do you think this? And if you thought it, why did you bypass all protections _yourself_ , instead of informing us?"

"It's what I told you!," wailed Hermione, in a high-pitched voice. "It didn't make sense to do it this way! _I told you!_ "

"If I told you, you wouldn't have believed me," said Harry. "I - I have no evidence, but I am _sure_ someone was trying to do something. There were too many strange coincidences and happenings this year. The troll..."

"The troll was the result of a very misguided prank by seventh years that has been _severely_ punished," replied Dumbledore, with a calming voice. "You know that, Harry. It was no sign of attempted theft, but we still increased security, just in case."

"No, the troll was a distraction - Headmaster, _he_ wants to steal the Stone and come back to life! He needs it! Like those unicorns that he's killed in the forest!"

"He? So the would-be thief is the poacher who-"

"Not him! That was just the fall guy! It was _VOLDEMORT!_ " 

A stunned silence fell across the teachers.

"Voldemort's not here," said Dumbledore. "He's dead, Harry. He died on the night in which you received that scar."

"He's not _dead_ , Headmaster! His spirit is possessing Professor Quirrell! You can tell from the fact that he _never takes off his turban!_ "

This elicited a straight up chuckle from Professor Snape. Everyone else, though, remained dead serious. They turned their gaze to Hermione, who was blushing so hard she might as well have been a tomato.

"But really, really," she mumbled, apologetic, "when he explained it to us it sounded _a lot_ more convincing..."

* * *

Crabbe and Goyle sat uncomfortably in front of Professor McGonagall's desk, in her office. Goyle in particular was squinting and squeezing his eyes, like he needed glasses. Which he did, of course, since he wasn't really Goyle. Slytherins wouldn't have been disciplined by her, they were out of her responsibility, thankfully. Gryffindors, on the other hand...

"Polyjuice. Potion," said the witch, tapping the desk with her wand to punctuate each word. "How, where, and why. Explain."

Goyle stubbornly puckered up his lip, crossed his arms, and didn't say a word. Crabbe on the other hand bumbled his way to an answer.

"We found it, and we, huh, decided to try it?," he said.

"You _found_ it. You _found,_ " and here McGonagall's stare fixated on Crabbe's eyes, or rather, Ron Weasley's, as she was now quite sure from his way of talking, "one of the most difficult to prepare potions, just lying around? And decided to try this unknown liquid with mystical properties?"

"Yeah, we-"

"Spare your breath, Minerva," said coldly Snape, walking in from the door, holding... _something_ human sized from its ear. "I've found the culprit."

He let the thing, a weird human-cat hybrid go, and encouraged it with a push to go sit down next to the other two. The creature obliged, with a whine that could have been a depressed moan as well as a meow.

"No prizes for guessing who _she_ is," he remarked, with a thin smile, then turned and left, closing the door behind him.

McGonagall held her temples, feeling an even greater headache than she already had rearing its ugly head. "Granger," she said, matter-of-factly. "My genuine admiration for you being able to brew Polyjuice at such a young age is severely outstripped by my _absolute disappointment_ in you for being involved in this nonsense! Miss Granger, _what you three did is a crime!_ Why did you not only go through with it, but worse, _enable_ it?"

"I-I-," Hermione stuttered, her feline side leaking out in how her voice sounded sometimes elongated and somewhat whiny, "I'm _sorry_ , Professor, but this was about the Chamber of Secrets, and the attacks, and-"

"I convinced her," said suddenly Goyle-Harry. "Punish me, if you need to punish someone."

"I'll punish _everyone,_ " replied McGonagall. "But the instigator more severely, if I deem it appropriate. So, if you don't mind, _what possessed you to do this absolutely crazy thing?_ "

"Because I needed to hear information from Draco Malfoy's own lips. I needed to make sure he wasn't the Heir of Slytherin."

Well, the Professor would be dishonest if she didn't admit that the notion had been flouted around when discussing the current situation among teachers. The Malfoys _were_ known for their blood purism, and Lucius had been a perhaps-Imperiused-but-let's-be-real Death Eater, back in the day.

"He follows the instructions of a diary that's possessed with the spirit of Voldemort, and taught how to free and control the monster."

"I don't believe in _that part!_ ," rushed to add Hermione. "I just agreed that it could be Draco, and if I didn't do anything, it would be like letting more people getting attacked."

The witch before them sighed. "And that's Gryffindors for you. Well, this is my fate, I guess."

She looked at them with a very penetrating stare.

"One hundred points from Gryffindor. _Each_. Detention twice a week for the rest of the year. You're also denied access to the library unless you pass any books you read or borrow through a teacher, and your potion making supplies are to be inspected regularly by Professor Snape to make sure you didn't use them for... unorthodox purposes. And Miss Granger, go see Madame Pomfrey immediately. You're lucky we caught you in time. Polyjuice mishaps can be a lot more dangerous and less temporary than you'd expect."

Crabbe - who was now turning back into Ron - and Hermione gasped. Goyle-Harry remained stubbornly silent, as his body slowly slimmed and shrunk down.

"You'll at least be happy to know that the monster of Slytherin - a basilisk, apparently - has just been captured," she added, a bit more softly. "Partially because of you, in fact, since you've caused such a stir that Professor Flitwick just ran into it while looking for you three, and followed it back to its lair. There was no Heir of Slytherin. In much less dramatic fashion, it seems the wards and protections around the age-old Chamber of Secrets had simply weakened down to the point that the monster was able to break out. It's now been taken into custody by the Committee for the Disposal of Dangerous Creatures."

She gave a stern, yet worried look at Harry.

"And Potter, please, for the love of all that is good, get over this delusion of yours that You-Know-Who is stalking your every move. He's dead, and dead people, for good or for bad, don't come back."

* * *

Harry was extremely careful. He didn't wake anyone as he left his bed, deep in the middle of the night, checked his possessions, grabbed his Cloak of Invisibility, and prepared to sneak out in what was possibly the most perfect form of stealth a wizard could attain. So he didn't think there would be a need for further care, and quickly checking the Marauder's Map for any teachers patrolling the corridors, he walked quickly through the boys' dorm room, and then towards the exit of the Gryffindor dorm. However, of course, he was wrong. Because just when he was about to leave-

"Harry," said a calm feminine voice behind him. 

He turned around, slowly. Hermione was standing there, half hidden in the darkness, pointing her wand perfectly at his position, Invisibility Cloak be damned. With a frustrated groan, Harry pulled the cloak partially off, appearing only as a disembodied head.

"How did you even find me out?," he asked.

"Invisibility or not, when you walk, you still make _noise_ ," she said. "If someone's expecting you, it's pretty obvious."

"And why were you expecting me?"

Hermione didn't answer to that. Instead she walked to him, her gaze turning to a worried one, but her wand remaining level, ready to hex him with a simple flick of the wrist. "Harry, I don't know what you're thinking to do, but _don't do it._ Didn't the last two years teach you how disastrous these ideas of yours tend to turn out?"

"That's why I didn't ask you two to come too," replied Harry, darkening. "I must do this alone."

"No you don't!," shouted Hermione back, stomping her foot. "You're just a third year student! You don't have to do _anything_! You don't have some... special destiny to fulfil! What is it that you want to do, exactly?"

"I need to go talk to Sirius Black."

To this, the girl simply remained speechless. "Talk," she said finally. "I thought you'd want to kill him."

The boy nodded. "If he turns out as bad as they say, I will. But something does not make sense in the official version of the events. Don't you _see_? Why would my parents trust him so much if he was the type to run off immediately to the Dark Lord once he had their secret? Why would he be arrested after such an obvious crime, and immediately slammed in Azkaban before any information could be extracted from him? _What happened to the corpse of Peter Pettigrew?_ Can you see the pattern? There's something fishy!"

Hermione groaned loudly. "Harry, _stop._ At least it used to be just your fixation about Voldemort-"

"I am sure he is behind whatever foul play happened," added Harry, darkly.

"-but now you want to just... walk to an escaped Azkaban convict and former Death Eater who probably hates you for vanquishing his master and _have a chat?_ He's spent twelve years locked with Dementors! If he wasn't already mad, he must be now! He'll kill you, Harry! He'll just - he'll just kill you!"

"Too many things don't add up. The Firebolt was sent by-"

" _We sent you the Firebolt, Harry!_ ," shouted Hermione, and then immediately caught herself and lowered her voice. "The entire House. We put together our money, everyone contributed what they could, and well, we didn't want to tell you because we didn't want you to feel indebted and also because it was a bit of a self interested gift. You _are_ the best Seeker Gryffindor's had in years. With that broom, you could bring us the Cup."

Harry opened his mouth, but in the end, he left it hanging, and said nothing.

"We're your friends, Harry. We're here. We're real and we do care for you and you're really not half bad a friend either when you just don't," she made a frustrated gesture with her hand, "start _ranting_ about Voldemort being alive and decide to go on some crazy mission and nearly get us and yourself expelled or killed! I think - I don't know - maybe you want closure, for your parents, be able to hang to this crazy hope that you can still avenge them, or, I don't know Harry, I'm not a psychologist or anything, but _please!_ "

Harry looked down, dejected. "It's not a hope, Hermione," he said, with a low voice. "It's scary, but you don't understand, I just - I just _feel_ that's how things are. That something is _wrong_. That everyone is just going to ignore it and pretend and live happy and I'm the only one who can do something about it and, and I don't know _what._ "

Hermione sighed, and finally put her wand back. Harry now appeared defeated, small, vulnerable. That moment of crazy determination fuelled by the absolute _certainty_ of some completely insane theory had finally passed. The girl came closer, and grabbed his arm.

"Come now," she said. "We must spend at least an hour out of the dorm, and sorry, by the time it's over people will find out you're missing and you'll probably get a little detention for wandering the corridors alone at night. But we have time, so do you want to talk about this feeling for a while? No theories, please. Just why do you need them so much."

Harry nodded and followed her. "Talking is fine," he muttered. "But why can't we go back right now? And also, how did you even know to wait for me?"

Hermione brought her hand to a thin golden chain hanging around her neck, and toyed with it, twirling it around her finger. If the chain had a pendant of some sort, it was invisible, hidden under her sweater.

"It's a secret," she said, with a mischievous smile.

* * *

"I believe this Tournament was supposed to strengthen the bonds of friendship between our three schools, am I correct, Headmaster?"

"Severus, please, this is not the time."

"Just an observation."

Dumbledore and the Potion Master entered a room where there already was a lot of visibly discontented people. Igor Karkaroff and Madame Maxime, headmasters of Durmstrang and Beauxbatons respectively, were arguing vivaciously on one side. On the other, the three older champions, Viktor Krum, Fleur Delacour, and Cedric Diggory, exchanged all resentful glances. But the most resentful of all they saved for the fourth champion, Harry Potter, who on his part simply sat out of the way, arms crossed, refusing even to meet anyone's gaze. Mad Eye Moody, in a corner, was simply looking left and right with his fake eye, its pupil jumping frantically from one occupant of the room to the next. Dumbledore and Snape walking in didn't exactly improve the average mood of the room.

"A moment of attention, please," called out loudly the Headmaster. "The unconventional way the last trial has ended has forced us to carry out some controls. Now, despite the original claims being obviously preposterous, our investigations have revealed a number of irregularities, some which we suspected or knew must have taken place, others entirely new. I am obliged to announce that in fact, and this is no exaggeration, this may go on record as the dirtiest wizard competition to ever take place. I hope you are all proud of having contributed to making history."

There was an embarrassed silence. Dumbledore pointed his gaze on the Durmstrang headmaster.

"Igor," he said, "you put Harry Potter's name in the Goblet of Fire and Confounded it, didn't you?"

"That was prank!," exclaimed the man, defensive. "What's little prank between friends?"

"Nothing, if we were friends," replied Severus Snape, coldly. "But wasn't it you who then wanted us to give a second champion to everyone else too? And loudly threatened to leave if justice wasn't given to you?"

Karkaroff scoffed. "Does not matter. We would have won _anyway._ Viktor is invincible."

"He certainly could have been," continued the Potion Master, "since we've found on him traces of the effects of at least _four_ different athletic-enhancing potions that had been explicitly forbidden."

"Just sports drinks!," protested the man.

"Not that it matters, because those potions' effects roughly cancelled out with those of the poisons administered by a mysterious hand," continued Snape, undeterred, "which we suspect might be the Beauxbatons student who was seen sneaking out of Krum's room two nights ago."

"Ah, ze throes of love and youth," said Madame Maxime, looking to the ceiling longingly. "I envy zem so."

"And for the sake of full disclosure, if we go on to our own Cedric Diggory-"

"The point is," interrupted Dumbledore, "that the Tournament will basically have to be made null and void. There has been so much cheating, spying and sabotaging going on, that it is genuinely impossible to decide who should _not_ be disqualified in this mess. Except perhaps for Harry Potter, who however should not have competed in the first place. That only leaves one question."

Everyone turned to look at the boy.

"Harry, why did you blow up the Cup before Cedric could touch it, and then screamed in front of the entire watching public that our Defence against the Dark Arts professor was actually a polyjuiced Death Eater who kept the real Alastor Moody hidden inside a trunk?"

A lot of silent, judging stares asked the very same thing; probably in more colourful language, even.

Harry straightened up. "Because Professor Moody helped me during the whole Tournament, and it was _obvious_ that he had to have an ulterior motive," he said. "The most logical explanation was that he had to be a servant of Voldemort, trying to get me to touch the Cup which was actually a portkey that would deliver me into his hands."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "Alastor?"

Moody chuckled. "I admit to helping the boy. I had figured out that Karkaroff had put his name in as part of some stupid scheme and thought it would be really funny to see his face if he won," he said, shrugging. "But boy, I _like_ the way you think."

* * *

"-and as the textbook makes clearly apparent, there is absolutely _no chance_ for you to actually meet the Pointy Imp in a real life situation, so we will skip right over the defensive enchantments, which are tedious and dangerous, and instead focus on learning the next-"

"What if someone sent them against us, then?"

Hermione sighed. She had to try her hardest as well to not question Professor Umbridge's so-called classes - really, it took a lot to get her into a rebellious attitude, and yet this woman ticked all the boxes. Her lessons were tedious, pointless and uninformative, completely devoid of any practical spell casting - also known as _the actual thing they needed to learn for their OWLs_. Her recommended textbook was downright insulting for fifth years. To use a metaphor only other muggleborns would get, studying Defence against the Dark Arts on it felt more or less like it must feel to study railway engineering on Thomas the Tank Engine. And it was really _obvious_ that most other students shared her opinions. There had even been some complaints early on, but given how harsh and unreasonable Dolores Umbridge's punishments could be, they had quickly subsided, as most students figured out that ticking her off wasn't wise, and they might as well just keep their head low and trudge through this year, waiting for the inevitable bad luck that seemed to befall all their teachers of that specific subject to do its work. Alastor Moody blowing himself up right during the last lesson with a misguided demonstration of a particularly Dark curse had only been the most spectacular recent example. It had not been too surprising that the Minister had answered that with a request for a safer teaching curriculum. But Umbridge was just _ridiculous._

But most students had figured out that they should keep their heads low because most students were _sane_. And Harry Potter, well, for all the friendship that Hermione could feel for him, sometimes just wasn't.

"And who would do such a horrible thing, Mr. Potter? No, wait, don't tell me-"

"Lord. Voldemort."

" _Again with that nonsense!_ "

Umbridge's shrill voice raised to an unpleasant, piercing shrike. In front of her, Harry kept staying unyielding, with that solid, firm, crazy conviction of his. Like he knew what he was doing would bring him pain, and he even feared that, but he feared more _not_ doing it. Like it was his duty.

"Voldemort is still alive," he said, with only the slightest tremble, "and he will one day return. And then, we will have to face him. And when that happens, we will have to be prepared. To know how to defend ourselves from-"

" _You-Know-Who is dead!_ ," shouted back Umbridge, hitting the desk with her wand. "You know it, everyone knows it, it's just how things _are!_ I told you and repeated you that you must _not tell lies!_ "

Harry flinched at those words. An imperceptible gesture, really, but Hermione was paying close attention. His right hand went to his left, touched the wrist, just for an instant. That was enough to draw the girl's eyes to the red marks on the back of his left hand - which he promptly concealed.

They almost looked like pen strokes.

That spelled the words I MUST NOT TELL LIES.

Hermione rose from her place, feeling herself flushed with anger, and didn't realise what she was even doing or saying until the words came out of her mouth, spontaneously, aimed straight at that... _toad_... of an idiot teacher in place of the hexes she would have liked to use.

"It's true," she said, "Harry is right. Voldemort is still alive. _I believe him._ "

* * *

The Room of Requirement was one of the strange features of Hogwarts' architecture that at the same time no one could have expected to exist and that just seemed obvious should in retrospective. Like, _of course_ the magical semi-sentient castle would occasionally spawn a room that provided you exactly with the environment you needed to train in secret a small army of rebellious students fed up by a bad teacher's inane lessons. Why wouldn't it?

"-that's good form, Seamus, but you want to snap the wand a bit more to the right with the last gesture, as you spell the final syllable - _Pro-te-GO_ , like that."

Hermione paced back and forth, looking at the various members of their little study group, giving them pointers and hints wherever she could see a mistake. She didn't have the arrogance of considering herself more knowledgeable or powerful than the average Hogwarts teacher, of course, but Umbridge? That was a _very_ low bar.

"The Patronus charm requires a powerful happy thought, Cho, so you really ought to find that, first. Maybe for now practice something easier, and then try looking for that when you're alone? It's sort of hard to focus on something so personal when you're surrounded by people shouting and hexing each other."

Ultimately, she was pretty satisfied with the outcome. One after another, dozens of students had joined the group, whether because they really started buying into Harry's weird ideas about Voldemort (it went without saying that Luna Lovegood fell in that category), because they were worried about their exams, because they wanted to stick it to Umbridge, or simply because they thought it would be fun. But the motives didn't matter all that much right now. They were _learning_ , together - a lot better, perhaps, than they ever had, and certainly better than with Umbridge. If Hermione ever became Headmistress of the school, she had ideas for a few reforms, now.

"You know, Hermione, I still didn't thank you properly for that day."

She turned to see Harry. He'd joined her after doing his own rounds amidst the students - he had accumulated an incredible knowledge of Defence arts himself, she had discovered, thanks to studying in private, all pushed by his personal obsession.

"Don't mention it," she replied, shaking her head. "There is one thing I want you to know, though. What I said to Umbridge that day was a lie. I don't actually believe Voldemort is still alive, and I think you'd be better off not believing it either."

Harry looked at her strangely. Disappointed? Sad? No, more just surprised. "Then, why?"

She shrugged. "If it's not Voldemort, and just a brand new Dark Wizard that we'll get to see in our lifetimes, what's the difference?," she said. "Studying the History of Magic really got me thinking. This sort of nutjobs seem to emerge with alarming regularity. The odds we'll have to deal with one when we're adults are, well, not good. Umbridge was not going to prepare us for that. _This_ is."

He nodded.

"Also, I just wanted to see Umbridge's face when I said that. I mean, the way her eyes bulged out afterwards was _priceless._ "

Harry laughed at that, which was a pretty rare occurrence, especially in the last months. She laughed with him and squeezed his arm.

Ten seconds later, Umbridge and three other professors barged through the doors.

* * *

"Why?"

She had to force herself to gather that word. She was angry, and no matter what she felt like towards Harry - _this_ had been too much. Way too much. So it required a serious effort to actually ask, to give him a chance to explain, because _this_...

They sat in a bare small antechamber to Hogwarts' infirmary. They were waiting for a response on what would happen to Draco Malfoy. Professor Snape was just outside, in front of the door, keeping guard. Depending on how things would go, Harry would be punished very harshly by the school. 

Or the Aurors would be called.

"You know why," said Harry, his eyes low. "Voldemort had-"

" _I don't want to hear about that!_ ," shouted Hermione. "Stop it! Stop for once with this stupid obsession! Harry, _you almost killed Draco Malfoy!_ With - with I don't even know _what_ , what was even that curse you used, where did you get a hold of a completely new Dark curse, I don't even _know_ you any more, Harry!"

"It was in my old used Potions' book, okay?," he snapped. "I didn't know it would - but I had to defend myself."

"Harry, I know Draco can be a bully, but there had to be a better way to-"

"It's not about the bullying. He was _plotting_ something. He was trying to get someone inside the castle. I just need to find out who and why, and-"

"Harry, _please!_ " the girl's scream was heart-rending. She was crying now, she got to him and shook him from his shoulder. "For once, for _once!,_ snap out of this madness! Admit you're wrong, and just stop it! You can't let it push you to... to _kill_ people, Harry! You pushed everyone away, and the ones who believed you, you always got in trouble for it. I've stuck out for you all this time, because I-"

She paused, swallowing her words.

"But I can't do it any more if you get to the point of hurting people," she said, sterner. "I just can't. Harry, you need help."

"I know I do," whispered the boy, grasping his head. "But if you felt - if you _knew_ with the same certainty I do-"

"Well, I don't. If Lord Voldemort was really alive - if and when he will show himself in the flesh, then I swear, I will be to your side fighting him. But until then, you just can't stay in Hogwarts and act like this."

"You're right, Hermione," whispered Harry. "I can't."

He put a hand in a large pocket of his robe and extracted a cloak, and in a whirl, he threw it around his body. It all became invisible, except for his head, and his wand hand, poking out, pointing at Hermione. The girl barely had her wand out as well, having been taken by surprise. There was little doubt on who would shoot first, if it came to that.

"I will leave," said Harry, slowly walking towards the only small window of the room, "and please, don't follow me. Don't look for me. I must search - I must find - I don't know what is it, there is _something_ , somewhere, that keeps the Dark Lord alive. I will destroy that something, and I will be free, and then I will come back."

"Harry, please-" Hermione choked.

"I won't hurt anyone. I will be alone. That should be enough for you, right?," he pushed a stool under the window, so that he could reach it and go out. "So just let me go."

There was a moment - when the boy quickly jumped on the window sill, summoned his broom, and then flew away, invisible - when Hermione could have stunned him with a simple hex. His wand wasn't trained on her any more. But she didn't do it. She just watched him leave, or rather, his broom alone float away, fast and straight the way he flew it at this best in Quidditch.

"Professor Snape," she called finally, when there was no way to catch him any more. "Harry's gone."

* * *

The tug and swirling sensation of side-along Apparition left Hermione staggering for a couple steps to regain her bearings after they arrived. After the initial disorientation, she confirmed her location. They were in the middle of a forest - probably somewhere in the north of England, or Scotland, from the looks of it.

"He's in that direction," said Dumbledore, lifting his arm to point forward. "He has put up wards and shields, but nothing that a competent witch such as yourself can not deal with, once their position is known. I believe it would be most beneficial if you went to talk to him alone, miss Granger. He would not trust me, in his current state."

"I know, Headmaster," she replied. She pulled out her own wand and walked in the indicated direction, carefully.

Every few steps, she would cast some detection magic to verify whether she had finally reached the warded area. When she realised _something_ was throwing her off course, she started prodding at it with her magic - weaving enchantments in and out, trying different approaches to find the right dispel. There were ripples in the air, and a shimmering, and she went through.

" _Reducto_!"

With a yelp, Hermione tossed herself to the side and rolled on the leafy floor, dodging a curse that caused an explosion right in the spot where she'd been until a moment before. She got up and breathlessly started shouting, while still running to dodge any other hits.

"Harry it's me Hermione stop don't attack stop for a moment _please listen!_ "

Harry had lifted his wand for a second strike but left it there. His eyes widened.

"Hermione?," he asked. "How did you find me?"

She sighed in relief, dusted her robe off, and looked around. Harry's camp was... well, it wasn't a complete _mess_ , there was a tent and a small campfire and a few buckets of water, which was easy to set up with some simple magical objects. But it was a very basic, crude thing. Hermione couldn't possibly imagine living this way for five months, exposed to the cold and the rain, with just a teeny tent without even an Extension Charm to make it more liveable.

"Dumbledore," she said, still catching her breath. "He helped me track you down, even if your Trace has expired. Harry - _what have you been doing?_ "

He shook his head and crouched down on the ground, sinking his head in between his knees. 

"I don't know. Searching. Training. Preparing," he said. "I keep feeling that whatever I'm looking for, it's _close_. And I can't figure out what or where it is. I'm just-"

He trailed off, and started sobbing, sinking his hands in his hair like he wanted to rip it out. 

"Why did you come? He's alive, but you just _don't believe me,_ like everyone else. What do you _want?_ "

"Harry, when you left that way," said Hermione, slowly coming closer, always an eye on his wand, that had never left the boy's fingers, "I, I didn't know immediately what to do, but in the end, I went to Dumbledore to talk. I asked if there couldn't be something behind your obsession. Something _magical_ , I mean. If maybe you were having visions, prophecies or something. Maybe you were a Seer."

"Am I?," asked Harry.

She shook her head. "It doesn't work that way. But he told me something - and Harry, this is _extremely confidential_ and _really Dark stuff_ \- he told me something that aligns with what you told me. He said that Voldemort had created some objects called Horcruxes. They require a horrible sacrifice, a _human_ sacrifice, but once made, they anchor the caster's soul to this world and allow him to be, well, immortal. Sort of."

The young wizard's eyes lightened up. "Do you mean... these Horcruxes are what I'm looking for?"

"No, Harry. Dumbledore found and destroyed Voldemort's Horcruxes years ago, when you were still a child. It was the first thing he did after the attack on Godric's Hollow, his absolute priority. He made _sure._ He agrees that Voldemort at this point is truly dead."

"I see."

Hermione sat right in front of him, still keeping her distance, wand in her lap.

"So, how's life in the wilderness?," she asked, smiling. "Caught any really impressive rabbits?"

He smiled back, faintly, and raised his head just enough to show it. "Not really. I don't like killing animals, it's messy with most curses. I even thought about using the Killing Curse, but you need hate for that one to work, and I can't bring myself to it. Plus I'm no good at skinning them afterwards anyway. I mostly live off stuff I can either gather around or, err, _borrow_ from the fields I come across."

"Oh, wow. Sounds like I really do have to call the Aurors on you."

"It's for the greater good, you know," he said, bitterly.

"Of course."

They paused for a while.

Then, "how's Hogwarts?," asked Harry.

"Without you? Kind of more boring, but all right," the girl nodded. "Draco's recovered in full. He's up and running and doing his usual rich spoiled brat shtick. Ron's doing great as Keeper in the Quidditch team, you know. House Cup seems a distinct possibility this year. The new Defence teacher is nothing to write home about, but he's doing his job."

"A new one? What happened to Snape?"

"Ah, that one's a funny story. I don't know the details, but apparently, they found a lot of photos of some student from his year he had a huge crush on back in school in his room. Some of the photos were... well, they didn't look like they'd been taken with the girl's knowledge or consent. And so, you know. Off with Snape."

"For being a stalker?"

"For _having been_ a stalker, like, fifteen years ago. That job really is cursed."

"One more thing that will go back to normal when I finally defeat Voldemort."

"Yeah, _of course._ "

Harry looked away. "You know - I wish I could come back, sometimes."

"Harry, you _can!_ Just come with us, we came here to-"

He shook his head.

"Remember when you got that heated up about protecting House Elf rights? You started campaigning, and distributing pins, and talking about it, even if everyone thought you were crazy, because _of course_ House Elves don't need rights? And no matter how much they told you it made no sense, you just wouldn't _stop_?"

"Yes, of course I remember. That whole thing is just on hold, by the way. Just wait until I become Minister of Magic, and you'll see."

"Right. And why did you keep doing it?"

"I see where you're going," she said, sighing. "Let's see. Because I was raised this way, I suppose. Because I feel like I have a duty to do things that are _right_ , and, and I don't know how I could face my parents that taught me, make them proud, if I didn't do it."

"Exactly," Harry nodded. "So how could I face _mine?_ "

"But this is different! Your parents wouldn't want... _this_ for you!," she gestured at the camp. "And not in the name of pursuing a ghost - I mean, even _more_ of a ghost than actual ghosts!"

"I know that too."

"You're hurting yourself, and you're hurting others, and what if you're just wrong? What if this search never ends because there's nothing to find?"

"Then-"

He trailed off and simply shook his head. When the girl looked at him closer, he seemed so, so tired. But there was no getting him back, she realised. Unless she was willing to just drag him by force, and she didn't want to do that, just like she wouldn't have wanted to be stopped from pursuing S.P.H.E.W. back in the day. Ridiculous as it was, Harry believed firmly in what he did, and in his duty to stop it. And she'd come there trying to break his spirit, to make him surrender. There was no way out, no road through which he wouldn't simply have to lose a part of himself.

She stood up, and looked away. She was thinking that perhaps coming here had been a mistake, all in all. Just a lot more pain for both her and him.

"You know what I said about the Killing Curse," she heard Harry saying, with a flat voice. "That it works only if you hate the target."

That felt incongruous, at first - and then, she realised what it meant and she turned as fast as possible, her wand levelled, but she saw that _Harry's wand was already up,_ pointed straight at his own chin, and there was no time to either scream or say anything else than an enchantment before-

" _Avada Ke-_ "

" _Stupe-_ "

* * *

Harry woke up in a bed of the Hogwarts infirmary, feeling confused and in pain. He squeezed his eyes a few times, trying to get used to the light coming in from the windows, then moved his hands a bit, flexing his fingers, which were still feeling tingly. Sensation returned into them at once.

"You're awake!"

He turned his head, following the voice, and saw Hermione put down a book and reaching his bedside. She was smiling, not just the sort of smile you put on to look reassuring or friendly. She seemed genuinely happy.

"What happened?," managed to say the boy, his words initially coming slurred. "Did you stop-"

"I didn't manage in time," said Hermione. "You gave me a _major_ scare there. But as it turns out, you're a very lucky wizard. And you were right all along."

Harry's eyes opened wide, and suddenly he didn't feel the tiredness much any more. He sat up on the bed. "What do you mean?"

"What's the last thing you remember?"

"Well, I fired-" he stopped, as he felt a sudden wave of shame and horror run over him.

"You fired the Killing Curse at yourself," finished Hermione for him. "I tried to stun you to stop you, but didn't make it in time. I ran up to you, thinking you were dead, but when I checked your breath, imagine that - you were still alive."

"The Curse... failed?"

The girl shook her head. "The Curse _never_ fails, Harry. No, that was something else. I've talked about it with Dumbledore, and he thinks he finally understood what had happened on that night in Godric's Hollow. The night of the attack, and of your scar."

"Voldemort used _you_ as a vessel, Harry. You were right, he was never entirely gone. There was a prophecy. He knew he was going to be slain by you, but he must have thought he could trick fate with an incredibly risky play. He created a new Horcrux - one imprinted on your own soul - and then destroyed his original body."

"On my-" Harry's hand ran to his lightning scar. "Do you mean he was inside me?"

"Yes, and you always _felt_ that to some degree. His plan must have been to eventually take you over, possess your body, and thus coming back, but he did not realise that his presence would affect your mind and drive you to-"

She paused. 

"-killing him." she concluded.

Harry leaned back, feeling dizzy. He could see Dumbledore, at the entrance of the infirmary, chatting with Madame Pomfrey, and only giving him a wink when he realised he was awake.

"A fair warning," added Hermione. "All this is to remain a secret among ourselves. Dumbledore was very specific about this. The idea that Voldemort's spirit managed to survive his body for almost eighteen years would not exactly please the public."

The other nodded. "And what are you going to tell everyone else?"

"That I managed to hit you in time, that you never fired off that curse at yourself, and that you always were a boy with a weird, irrational obsession about certain weird conspiracy theories."

She squeezed his hand. 

"But you're not one to care about the official version of this sort of story, no?"

He shook his head and let it fall back on the pillow. 

"So, I am free?" He felt tears welling up in his eyes. "Just like that?"

"Yes, you are." Hermione smiled brightly. "Be free."

Far away, Dumbledore observed the scene, only hearing distractedly what Madame Pomfrey was saying to him about Harry's condition. He saw the girl leaning in towards the boy, their faces getting closer, and only then averted his eyes. There was nothing more to see. He smiled, satisfied.

His job was finally done.


End file.
